


Front Row Seat

by Doxi



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Short!Outsider, Vaguely Lovecraftian!Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-29 01:46:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3877660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doxi/pseuds/Doxi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A drabble request from a friend.  Corvo gets roped into a dance at the masked ball on the Boyle Estate, where he runs into an unexpected guest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Front Row Seat

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this 'prompt' here: http://barachests.tumblr.com/post/118058802606/

“I simply won’t take no for an answer!” The woman in the painted mask squealed. She wavered unsteadily on her feet, drunk as the rest of the guests, as she tugged Corvo along. His hushed insistence that he simply couldn't dance was not swaying her. “Imagine the scandal!” She giggled, twirling around once they’d reached the dance floor to place Corvo’s hands into position. She leaned close to his ear and he could smell the wine on her breath even through their masks. “Dancing with the Masked Felon.” The words left her in a warbling giggle and Corvo, not wanting to cause a scene, fell into step.

The music was louder here, and it had traveled through most of the house that it had not surprised him in the least. It served well to muffle the conversation of his new found companion of the evening. His mask serving him well to let him scan the crowds for Lady Boyle. All the faux faces seemed to blur together as he searched. A cat here, a weeping damsel there, geometric patterns and swirling veves; now no more remarkable than the interchangeable faces beneath them. 

“So who are you?” The woman in his arms asked, leaning a little too heavily in his arms.

“The Masked Felon, of course.” Corvo tipped his head back to her. She giggled in delight.

“No, I mean really.”

He thought about telling her. He thought about letting her know, letting them all know. How liberating would it be to rip off the mask in that ballroom and announce to all the drunken party-goers; “Here I am, Corvo Attano, I walk among you.” 

To reclaim his identity, to restore his name, to punish them all for the suffering they had caused.

But she slipped from his arms then, partners exchanging. Man and Woman switching to same sex partners as the dance steps changed ever so slightly. He glanced after her, watching to make sure her attention was captivated by her new partner. Now was his chance to slip out, causing only the most minor hiccups in the flow of the dance.

A man took him by the left hand and Corvo was ready to make some excuse to slip away but the grip on him was icy cold. It almost burned and the dull itch of the Outsider’s mark seared anew. 

“Enjoying the party, Corvo?”

Time seemed to slow down, he could feel the fringes of reality fraying around him. The Outsider stood before him, unmasked, unadorned in party garb, and looking disturbingly more human in the absence of void glow. Corvo found himself customarily at a loss for words.

The Outsider stood a good head shorter than Corvo and had to tip his head ever so slightly up to meet the Assassin’s gaze. Corvo had seen the Outsider stand on two legs only once, in his prison cell, and at the time it was hardly a thing he noticed. Now he had to contend with the fact that the creature occupying human form danced as assuredly and confident as any noble there, with his cold hand wrapped rightly around Corvo’s. The pad of his thumb grazing over the mark he had bestowed as a gift.

“You’re certainly acting as though you are. What with your reckless abandon.” 

Time did not cease, it continued. Others danced around them unawares, and Corvo was forced to maneuver through the steps, the palm of his hand pressed against the Outsiders. Corvo became aware of the metaphor of the steps. The ladies mingled and swayed, whispering secrets about the handsome men they had just departed from. The men silently compared one another, circling, and good natured rivalry.

The Outsider circled him, but there was nothing good natured in his actions. Nothing overtly malicious, either. Just the slow, deliberate path of a leviathan moving through the mire. 

“They don’t see you.” Corvo finally whispered.

“Oh they see me, Corvo. But do they comprehend what they see the way you do?” The Outsider never smiled, but the tone of his voice lilted up in a boyish all-knowing way. His dark, murky eyes seemed so much more dead here. There was even a smell which he had not placed in the Outsider’s realm. The heavy musky tang of ocean rot and decay cloyed at the air around them. Corvo thought he heard someone mutter about the smell.

“What are you doing here?”

“Call it curiosity.” The Outsider droned, they turned in unison, switching hands and direction, flowing with the tide of dancers. “You interest me Corvo. Perhaps I merely wanted a front row seat.”

Corvo was silent. His foot skidded ever so slightly on the floor as they moved. He realized it was because The Outsider was drenched. His hair hung damp around his temples, his clothes slickened head to toe, like a man pulled from the surf. The physical world produced strange effects on the being and Corvo was unsure just how much of it was real. 

“Is it all you dreamed it would be Corvo?” The Outsider’s voice was not muffled by the music, in fact when he spoke all other sound seemed to cease.

“The party?” Corvo asked.

The Outsider said nothing, but the corners of his mouth upturned ever so slightly with the lifting of his brows. The dance steps shifted again and The Outsider broke away, cresting through the crowds and vanishing just as a new woman took up Corvo’s hands.

He stumbled then, head wrenching to try and find The Outsider’s form, the next unsuspecting person to be caught up in his arms. 

“Are you alright dear?” The woman asked, “It looks like someone spilt something on floor.”

Corvo gently tugged away. “Please excuse me, I need some air.” He turned, maneuvering through the crowds away from the direction The Outsider had disappeared. The balcony called to him, and as he pushed through the curtains into the cooling night air he couldn't help but notice the burning in his lungs felt as though he were drowning.


End file.
